St. Simón de Rojas: "Sayings of Virtue for Gaining Perpetual Wisdom"

 Introduction

St. Simón de Rojas (1552-1624) was a Spanish Trinitarian priest.  After studying in Valladolid and Salamanca, he taught theology in Toledo before becoming a superior to various Trinitarian monasteries.  He also served at the Spanish court, as confessor to Queen Margaret and Queen Isabel, as well as preceptor to the Spanish princes.  He is known for his fervent devotion to Mary, being dubbed "Apostle of the Ave Maria."  He was canonized in 1988, just before the close of the Marian Year.

His life was mostly taken up with apostolic work; he left a handful of shorter writings, as well as one major work, the Treatise on Prayer and Its Grandeurs, left in manuscript upon his death and not published until 1939.  The below work is a collection of sayings he wrote to aid his students.

 

Sayings of Virtue for Gaining Perpetual Wisdom

St. Simón de Rojas
(1552-1624)

1. He who knows much and speaks little, knows much; he who knows little and speaks little, knows much.

2. He who knows little and speaks much, knows nothing.

3. He who studies more tests the little he knows by the much that he knows he doesn’t know.

4. To be a good student, a book from the department he professes is enough.

5. The good student has to work with a pen in his hand, making notes of what he sees and hears, and, in a quarter of an hour, he will soon find himself in a spot that costs many days of study.

6. Each day, the Preacher has to write a concept, the Confess, a case of conscience, and the Metaphysician, a consequence, and, at the end of a year, he will find himself with three hundred and sixty-five materials to apply to the Pulpit, to the Confessional, or to the Chair, which is great interest from little cost.

7. He who grinds out arguments wears himself out and proves nothing, because truth is revealed with a few steps.

8. Those who follow doctrines through persistence and not through reason are like those who eat what they don’t like.

9. It is not a credit to defend many conclusions, but only those that are known to be better, because the much that is promised does not match up with the little that is discussed.

10. Do not say what you know in every occasion, and in none stop knowing what you’re saying.

11. Do not wear yourself out with the Masters nor with the ignorant, with the former through respect, with the latter, to be done with them.

12. Blood makes great men, wisdom, greater men, and virtue, most eminent men.

13. Do not study what you don’t dare to teach.

14. Power makes men noble, but not wise.

15. There is no happy fool nor miserable sage.

16. The fool knows as much as he who does not take advantage of what he knows.

17. For him who studies, there is no prize as great as wisdom.

18. The unconfident ignorant man has the advantage over the presumptuous wise man.

19. Letters without virtue take away life, like those Uriah carried in the note from David.

20. The perfect Religious studies while praying and prays while studying.

21. He does not enter through the gate of wisdom who does not begin studying for fear of God.

22. Let us learn to live and die well, for this alone has the advantage over those who have studied and known most.

23. Sane men take more delight in hearing than speaking, learn better than teach.

24. He who has much and desires more loses all of it.

25. Sick sight is corrected by glasses; that of the soul is lost through them.

 

Note: The final line is an untranslateable Spanish pun: antojos means both "eyeglasses" and "whim," "impulse," or "hasty judgment."

Source: Francisco de Arcos, Primera Parte de la Vida de V.y Rmo.P.M.Fr. Simon de Roxas... (Madrid: Julian de Paredes, 1670), 32.

Translation ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.